The definitive collection. The grand dame of african music

An early contemporary of Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka was part of the 1950s South African "jive" scene, mixing American-style group vocals and swing beats with local melodic and harmonic styles. She's best known as the author of the song, "Pata Pata," which was one of Makeba's earliest and biggest international hits. Like Makeba, Masuka found herself in exile in the early 1960s, as the campaign against apartheid intensified, and artists seen as sympathetic to the African National Congress were proscribed and placed under threat of arrest. Unlike Makeba, she was unable to crack into the international market in Europe and the USA, performing (and for a while retiring from music, in order to keep a low profile) mainly in the other African countries that were able to shelter her. This collection gathers some of her rare early work on the Gallo label, off of stellar albums such as "Hamba Notsokola," (her 1950s debut), and moves on to include later, glossier material from the early 1990s, when she made her comeback. It's the old stuff that I find irresistible: I just love the original "jive" sound. It's nice, though, to see Masuka finally getting her due, and this retrospective is a most welcome addition to any African pop library.